Common Man Cocktails

Updates

Debut

Website

Common Man Cocktails (formerly known as Everyday Drinkers: Common Man Cocktails) is a daily Video Podcast featuring Derrick Schommer and Doug Petersen and is part of the BitStreamTV, LLC network first launched on July 26, 2008. Five days a week the hosts show off a new cocktail recipe, usually submitted by their viewership, which involves creating the cocktail and tasting it for their unique "tasting notes" and description of the cocktail design. Every now and again there are additional episodes which go through spirit infusions, spirit tastings and product/accessory reviews.

A new DIY cocktail episode airs on Tuesday - Friday and one on Sunday entitled Sunday Night Shooters. The show, which has been airing on Youtube, iTunes, iFood.tv, and Mevio for years currently has over 18,000 subscribers on their Youtube Channel.

Contents

History

We once started as a basic audio podcast in which we talked about everything drinking (this explains the “everydaydrinkers” moniker) but has since formed into something HD-video related. Common Man Cocktails, the "main focus and effort of our production is a show on how to make cocktails and we do it with enthusiasm and energy, like all things should be done." [1]

The show was inspired out of the fear and uncertainty of a cocktail recipe book. You open it, you look through its pages title by title but you just don’t know what to make within its endless text. The ingredients are all but foreign and you have no idea why you’d buy them, let alone know what it would look like and how it would taste. Common Man Cocktails exists to unravel the doubt, shed light upon the fear and show everyone that “any random person can make a cocktail.” How so? They just like everyone else, a “common man” making a cocktail.

The first youtube episode entitled EverydayDrinkers: Perfect Mai Tai was uploaded on July 26, 2008 and started out with three episodes a week. However, as optimization of editing and time for each show became easier to handle, the show moved to a five episode a week format. There have only been a few weeks in which Common Man Cocktails was unable to air, one which was due to Derrick Schommer's son being diagnosed with Leukemia. However, even during the treatment in the hospital Derrick and his wife would film on Friday nights and release an episode each day.

To celebrate the 4th year of cocktail recipe video creations, Common Man Cocktails released their 4-Year Anniversary Flashback: There And Back Again in which Derrick Schommer flashes back through the episodes from the past, explains the situation with his son Leukemia diagnoses and gives more background details about what has gone into the creation of the cocktail show.

On July 16, 2012 Common Man Cocktails signed with FullScreen.net a youtube advertising partner and on December 12, 2012 The 3rd Annual Streamy Awards announced the nomination of Common Man Cocktails in the DIY / How-To category.[2]

Show vs. HOWTO

Common Man Cocktails is a cocktail recipe show, which goes through the creation ("howto") of building a specific cocktail but extends the show through Derrick and Doug's personality, life adventures and questions of the day to their audience all wrapped in a light hearted casual humor. Unlike a typical 2-minute howto video, Common Man Cocktails ranges from 6-15 minutes in length and works hard to keep their community involved and engrossed in the show. This includes commenting and responding to the audience through youtube, in the show's new LIVE format or e-mail; fans love to interact with the host in a more back-and-forth manner compared to traditional TV programs.

Recording Schedule

Common Man Cocktails is a daily cocktail show but it is recorded once a week with five show tapings back-to-back. Usually, the show is tapped on a Friday night and edited on Sunday night. Each episode is than released on their schedule day-to-day. Historically, most fans thought the show as tapped once a day because Derrick Schommer would change his shirt after each cocktail so it looked as if the show as only taped once at a time. This got process was tedious and eventually he revealed that the show as tapped all in one sitting; each cocktail is than poured out after the show so to finish all episodes and remain sober.

Common Man Cocktails LIVE

Starting in July 2012, Common Man Cocktails started running live recordings of their show, typically on Friday nights at 7:30PM GMT-5 on UStream. Fans login and watch all the behind the scenes action and show setup for each episode while being able to see all five shows tapped all at once and then watch them again on Youtube or through one of their distribution channels.

Recipe Submissions

Common Man Cocktails is very user-driven in content with almost all episode recipes being submitted by their audience. From mixologist, bartender to cocktail enthusiast hundreds of recipes are submitted each month to air on the show in future episodes. Each episode is credited with the submitter and can range from very sweet and easy to make cocktail creations to the more classic pre-prohibition cocktail design.